For Allocators
Equity manager oversight for allocators and OCIOs
Separate the managers with real stock-selection skill from the ones charging active fees for exposure you could buy in an ETF — with a holdings-based, factor-neutral read you can put in front of a committee.
Manager selection is still mostly done by interview
Allocators are paid to make one judgment from different chairs: is this manager delivering skill, or charging an active fee for exposure that's cheaply replicable? The industry's own admission is that this is done by manager interviews and portfolio review — there is no standard, defensible measure that separates a real stock-picker from a closet indexer riding a sector or style tilt. That gap is a governance liability, not just an analytics one.
A standardized read on every manager
The Manager Skill Review peels each manager's realized, position-level return through market, sector, subsector, and style, down to a single stock-selection residual — computed the same way for every manager, so two are finally comparable on the one thing the fee is meant to buy.
Rank candidates on the stock-selection residual that persists out of sample — favor the top quintile, within a chosen mandate.
Show how much of a manager's return came from buyable market/sector exposure versus the residual you're actually paying the fee for.
Track quarter-over-quarter change in a manager's residual skill and concentration — catch drift before the review meeting.
See when a manager's style box, concentration, or residual profile stops matching what the mandate intends.
Read a book of managers on one axis — who is duplicating exposure, who is a closet indexer, who is earning their slot.
Generate a board-ready, one-page memo per manager — the same review, formatted for the committee book.
Built for
The evidence behind the measure
Out of sample, stock-selection skill persists (t≈3.4) while sector- and style-timing — measured the identical way — do not. It's a gross, within-mandate ranking signal that improves forward odds, not a guarantee. See the evidence →
Skill figures are gross, holdings-derived, and within-mandate. Informational use only — not investment advice.